Bilingual commentary: Education — An Accelerating Divide

Editor’s note:Amigos805 welcomes local guest columns, letters to the editor and other submissions from our readers. All opinions expressed in submitted material are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the viewpoint of Amigos805.

By David Magallanes / Guest contributor

David Magallanes

An article* earlier this month provided an item from a reliable research center that is disturbing and counterproductive to a highly-functioning society. It was found that a majority of Republicans, contrary to a relatively short time ago, now view higher education negatively. In European culture, educated individuals are admired and respected. But this finding by the Pew Research Center implies that conservative Republicans in our country, a sizeable chunk of our population, would view anyone who is highly educated as “suspect.”

The reasons are varied, but once again we are seeing here the unfortunate and ugly split between conservative and liberal Americans. Conservatives are justifiably horrified and disgusted by the occasional outrageous, riotous behavior of angry left-wing students (along with the influence and participation of outside agitators and thugs) on campuses and stifling conservative speech. They claim that professors at public colleges and universities are foisting leftist views onto their students as these same professors ridicule conservative ideology.

There is some truth to this. By their very nature, college professors lean more liberal in their views and have the soapbox from which to deliver their thoughts and ideas, either implicitly or blatantly. Meanwhile, some conservative parents will see to it that their children attend private, conservative or possibly even faith-based colleges, thereby limiting these students’ exposure to traditional science and Western philosophy. Or they might actively discourage their children from attending college at all, which will entrench vast sectors of our society in a conservative ideology that clashes monumentally with the educated class. Under this scenario, the deep and tragic divisions amongst us would accelerate, dividing us even further, leading our country into territory we may not even want to imagine.

Editor’s note: Amigos805 welcome comments on stories appearing in Amigos805 and on issues impacting the community. Comments must relate directly to stories published in Amigos805, no spam please. We reserve the right to remove or edit comments. Full name, city required. Contact information (telephone, email) will not be published. Please send your comments directly to frank@amigos805.com

Click to your website, e-newsletter or a larger image of your rotating Square advertisement (above) for only $50 per month, Stamp advertisement (below) for $20 per month. Ask us about our three for the price of two advertisement special!!!

> Reach a targeted and growing audience of Latino community members in Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties on a local community website that reported more than 1.1 million hits, nearly 75,000 visits and more than 38,000 unique visitors during 2017.

VIEW, SUBMIT 805 REGIONAL EVENTS

Submitting Your News

Amigos805 has launched a new media release posting system where the public can submit their own news items for Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties and have them appear on our home page. Amigos805 reserves the right to approve all submitted media releases, news items and guest commentaries.